


Kara's Mom Has Got It Going On

by Anonymississippi



Category: Supergirl (TV 2015)
Genre: Alura the hot mom, F/F, LUSH Bath products, Lawn Care and Flirting, Lucy-I-Need-To-Get-Laid-Lane, Obnoxious Alex, PDA!General Danvers, Sun-burn soothing, and all the trouble they cause, if you squint and angle your head upside down, little bit of temperature play, pool parties, suburban living
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-11
Updated: 2017-09-14
Packaged: 2018-12-26 10:14:16
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 16,665
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12056847
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Anonymississippi/pseuds/Anonymississippi
Summary: Based on a tumblr prompt and then connected back to the 2003 classic "Stacy's Mom"Tumblr prompt based on the label of a LUSH bath and beauty shower product:‘How to use: If you really don’t know how to use this, then we suggest you find someone you really like and invite them into the shower with you to demonstrate.'Alura takes instruction to heart and Lucy has never been more happy about that alien attention to detail. Character study with smatterings of plot, all leading up to a big bubbly bang.





	1. we can hang around by the pool

All the warehouses and stockpiles of knick-knacks and ornamental décor at IKEA, Overstock, Wayfair.com, Cabella’s Outdoor catalogue, and HGTV’s best suppliers had absolutely nothing on the interior décor prowess exemplified by Alura Ingles, truly Alura In-Ze, formerly Alura Zor-El, and current obsession of one Major-Director Lucille Lane.

Lucy stared across the backyard at her best friend’s mother, sipping her beer and weighing chances for a stolen kiss against the likelihood of getting punched in the gut by a superhuman. She’d been keeping a low profile since she’d arrived at the pool party, opting to nurse a beer grown warm at the end of a lazy summer season; but her eyes were drawn to the atmosphere, to the party, and to the gorgeous woman who hosted it.

The table settings were immaculate with patterned vases and polka-dot bowls and garden-grown sunflowers. According to Alura—who was new to the whole _human_ thing but still doing a bang-up job—late summer in a National City suburb called for paper lanterns and fairy lights and tiki torches on the patio. The patterned cushions, wicker furniture, rainbow place settings and trays of hand-made treats certainly rankled the sensibilities of other suburbanites who had considered themselves 21 st century June Cleavers. Truly, those women had never counted on the exceptional.

They had never counted on Alura In-Ze.

It wasn’t that Lucy was _bothered_ by Alura, or irritated, or upset. It was that Lucy was overwhelmed with dire sexual frustration that was becoming increasingly difficult to disguise, especially amongst a cohort of perceptive aliens and humans alike, who had undoubtedly noticed that Lucy was avoiding Alura like a bubonic plague resurgence. Which all made zero sense, as Alura was perhaps the kindest, sincerest, and most pragmatic of the group. It showed in her earnest willingness to host these get-togethers, and the Labor Day extravaganza she had thrown together despite the grumbles of her sister only highlighted the aforementioned positive personal qualities to a degree which Lucy had trouble reconciling. Because Lucy—and all of her acquaintances—were hard-line field agents, trained in hand-to-hand combat and marksmanship, refined like golden warriors by the furnace of militarized training, discipline, and duty. And so the setting, National City suburbia with a backyard patio, in-ground pool, and Holland gas grill, wasn’t exactly feeling _normal_ to her.

Neither were the feelings she harbored for Alura.

This was not a mission that could be completed through force. Lucy would need every ounce of charm, sentiment, and perhaps even a bit of glamour to woo Alura. She’d also need a fair amount of luck and for Kara to remain as oblivious as she had been since she’d known her. All that and maybe… just _maybe_ , Lucy could steal a kiss.

And yet, it was hard to dissociate from the badge. It was hard to not think of subterfuge, when it had been so long since they’d ever been in such a… well, non-threatening setting. She wasn’t about to box Alura in, flank her left with patio chairs and her right with the garden gate. She wasn’t about to lure her out of sight and push her up against the siding and have her wicked way with her with a dozen other guests splashing behind the fence.

No.

Certainly not.

Alura would never allow it, but if she did… _god,_ _if she did_ —

Lucy gripped her coozie harder and swung her feet in the pool, fiddling with her sunglasses so that none of the others could see where her gaze meandered.

Despite the joyous atmosphere of the cook-out, she couldn’t help but think an alien was likely to come dropping out of the intermittent cloud cover, ready to pounce on all of them while they were at their most vulnerable. Lucy was unarmed, unprotected, and utterly unfocused because of one dark-haired hostess with a matching sarong and bikini-top, blessedly covered up by a classic “Kiss the Cook!” apron.

Lucy wasn’t one for taking orders from dollar-store kitchen clothing, but boy, did she ever give that apron its due consideration.

Because aside from the party, the water, the food, and the all-around leisurely vibe that had become somewhat foreign to their rag-tag group, Lucy was dealing with damnable _feelings_ , feelings of which she most certainly did NOT need to be dealing with when the kissable cook’s daughter and her current best friend were one in the same; when said current best friend was hovering roughly ten feet in the air over the deep end, testing the dynamics of flying and falling to see which star-fished belly-flop would produce the greatest splash for the enjoyment of her fellow pool-day partiers. Winn had already gotten a headstart on the belly-flopping contest with his clumsiness on the diving board. However, Winn was not immune to surface tension like Kara, and was thus nursing his reddened belly and moaning off to the side, hating having taken a bet of any physical sort against an invulnerable Kryptonian.

Lucy chugged another few swallows of light beer and did her damndest to keep her eyes off Alura. It was easy for a while since Alura was high on her hostessing gig; but eventually, she emerged from the kitchen with a platter of freshly chopped fruit arranged in a technicolor display. She set it at the center of the patio table amongst iced-down sodas, juices, and a jug of ice water, pulled pork and grilled sausages, toasted buns, homemade coleslaw, and grilled veggie skewers specifically roasted for Lucy and Susan, the lone vegetarians in the group. Then there were the made-from-scratch cupcakes that matched the printed tablecloth, and the awesome back-yard stereo system, which Alura and Astra had installed themselves upon acquiring the perfect suburban retreat. The two single, thirty-something-looking twins had raised some nosey eyebrows from the chatty-Kathys in the neighborhood, but Alura had quickly put any rumors to rest by killing those neighbors with kindness.

Astra, in all her aloof effrontery, had proposed simply killing them.

But Alura had baked casseroles for the neighbors when they moved in, having misinterpreted the house-warming tradition. She had collected the contact information of all the families on the block and had started a monthly book club, as well as a neighborhood watch, currently led by her sister, whose cover was ex-military with an honorable discharge and a Purple Heart for a missing toe. Astra already possessed a distinct aversion to sandals, so this ruse was not difficult to maintain.

While Astra commuted to classes in the city and split her time between ecology research and consultations for the DEO, Alura, of course, went to law school. This was yet another cause for question on the suburban block, though Alura put any whisperings to rest once again by stating that she and Astra had wealthy relatives in a foreign country (Lucy couldn’t remember which county Kara had told her, but it did explain the slight accented English of the pair) and had recently come into a windfall inheritance. The truth of the matter was that the Kryptonian twins were simply geniuses, and, upon Alura’s initial arrival six months ago, the small loan they had gotten from the bank had been invested and repurposed, several papers forged, and their expertise as intergalactic consultants generously compensated. They did not so much “play the market” as predict it and control it and exploit it, chocking up the fiscal gains to basic arithmetic and a Kryptonian sense for patterns, risk, capital, assurance, and other accountancy terms that Lucy felt she should’ve paid more attention to in Econ Law.

They had been through a lot over the past year with the suppression of Myriad and the battle for the Omegahedron. Max Lord had been summarily dispatched by Alex Danvers, and Lucy’s own father was currently awaiting trial by military tribunal for his collusion with Lord during the rising. It had tested her loyalties, the very bedrock of her psyche, but somehow—in all of the desperate planning and countermoves and disarming of private contractors and military personnel—an alien woman with beautiful grey eyes, quiet wisdom, and a truly kind heart had dropped from the sky and into Lucy’s care. In the middle of it all, Alura did her best to keep up, to adjust, to help and recover and rebuild that fragile relationships she had lost with her sister. Astra had gone turn-coat against her own unit once she’d fallen into an initially turbulent (and now sickeningly romantic and unnecessarily public) relationship with Alex; and then there was also Alura’s daughter, who had more questions than her heart could hold, and a reluctant bitterness that seeped from inside her no matter how desperately Kara tried to bottle it up.

But much can happen in six months. Careful conversations in cells laced with Kryptonite, a passage of books, magazines, news clippings, a review of photos taken on a smartphone between a best friend and a reluctant daughter, promises made and promises kept, a breakdown, a build-up, a shouting match with a militant father and then an alien shoulder to cry on…

Lucy and Alura had grown very close very quickly.

Everything together twisted like an emotional hurricane within Lucy, but the eye, the center, the calm—that was Alura. Lucy revolved around her, energetic, kinetic, expansive and covering a lot of ground in a short amount of time, but Alura… god, Alura grounded her. She was asking questions in One-L year Lucy hadn’t discovered until her summer before the bar, and hell if Alura’s alien mind wasn’t as wonderful as her heart. And, to Lucy’s certain defeat, that gorgeous, bright heart was perhaps only an ounce more gorgeous and bright than her lithe, powerful body.

Sometime during Lucy’s poolside reverie, Alura turned off the gas-line feeding the flamed grill and shut the lid, and had set about to preparing her own plate after the hoard of Martian and Media-Mogul and Photojournalist and Special Agent descended upon the smorgasbord like vultures upon carrion. And Alura had removed that kiss-me, (kiss-me, Lucy, _darling_ kiss me), apron, so that everything was abs and obliques, soft, perfectly cupped mounds covered by triangles of green and a string that would take one tug to release. Alura bit into a slice of salted watermelon and the juice squirted on her chin, ran along the sharp angle there, caught just in time by a paper napkin with printed flowers on it. It seemed her Kryptonian banquet manners were still present pool-side on Earth and Lucy Lane was _riveted_.

“So when are you gonna tell her?”

Danvers.

 _Fuck_.

“What?” Lucy said, retreating to the safety her low-calorie Michelob afforded her.

“When are you gonna tell Kara that you wanna bang her mom’s brains out?” Alex snickered, well into a six-pack of her own. “Multiple times a day.”

Alex and Susan Vasquez had pre-gamed on whiskey and water before arriving, which led to a rather embarrassing moment for James after he’d walked into the hall in search of the guest bathroom, only to find Alex’s hand shoved between Astra’s legs.

(“We were on our way to her _room_ ,” Alex had protested after a bout of chastising from the hostess and the hostess’s green-faced and utterly appalled daughter.)

“I’m about as keen to tell Kara that as you were to tell her about you and Astra in the DEO sparring room,” Lucy mumbled around the lip of her canned beer, grown hot despite the coozie. “ _And_ that one time in Kara’s _bed_.” 

It couldn’t have been the alcohol since she’d only had two, but seeing the cut of Alura’s hip bones diving down into the flowy, palm-green of that sarong engendered fantasies of diving down beneath the flowy, palm-green of that sarong _herself_ , and emerging with a better taste on her tongue than low-calorie beer.

“You know, you’re doing a fairly decent job of hiding it,” Alex redirected, kicking rhythmically at the water, shooing Carter and M’gann away. The lady Martian launched the gangly boy into the deep-end, much to Cat’s apparent worry. She looked like a housewife on the precipice of melt-down, but soon Carter emerged, shaking his shaggy head with an immense grin on his face. Cat let out that pregnant breath she’d been holding and returned to her conversation with Astra.

“Think so?” Lucy asked.

“Your quarry is oblivious,” Alex said, dropping back on her elbows and lifting her chin skyward, soaking up rays from a relentless sun. “As is her offspring.”

The drift of occasional cloud was doing nothing to protect their pale, human skin. She’d doused herself in spray-on sunscreen prior to arrival but was not reapplying. Alex’s cheeks were already red.

“Then how’d you cotton on?” Lucy wondered.

“The only ones you have to worry about are—no, wait, I never considered the Martians,” Alex said, casting a glance over her shoulder at a curmudgeonly J’onn, seated at the patio table with a dollop of white sunscreen on his nose, sunglasses on, and a floppy, canvas beach hat plopped atop his head. He looked utterly out of place in his black tank top and board shorts, but all the more endearing for it. “Anyway, Vasquez caught on quick when Astra and I started sleeping together—she said something to me, in the beginning, I mean,” Alex continued. “But Winn’s not had the training yet, James is still a civilian, no matter what Guardian does for his ego, and Cat—well, I imagine she’s got a better eye than most.”

“You and Vasquez I can handle,” Lucy slumped forward, staring at the swirls she made with her feet in the water. Tiny waves crested and broke against her ankles, distracting her from inappropriate thoughts about Alura. She was more concerned with who all knew she harbored such thoughts. “Cat is—I don’t see how this will help her or her empire, so it’s immaterial. M’gann and J’onn do a well enough job of not reading minds, or else they’d be treated to the equivalent of bad 70s porn if they looked into yours—”

“We like other stuff… you know, shooting things sometimes, too,” Alex responded, waggling her eyebrows.

“You’re still in the honeymoon phase,” Lucy dismissed her.

“They say it lasts the whole first year,” Alex agreed. “Seven and a half months and no signs of slowing down yet.”

“You don’t have to brag about it, some of us haven’t gotten laid in _months_ ,” Lucy muttered. She’d had one or two first dates since James, had even seen one woman for a whopping three dates and one drunken hook-up before calling it, too invested in Lord’s takedown and the accusations against her father to put more effort into her personal life.

“I bet she’d be into it,” Alex commented.

“Who, Alura?”

“No, Kara,” Alex snorted, shoving her harder than she’d probably intended after one Corona too many. Lucy splashed against the water and caught herself on the pebbled concrete surrounding the pool, delivering a swift kick to Alex’s calf in retaliation.

“God, _of course_ Alura, asshole,” Alex griped, throwing an arm around Lucy’s shoulder and nuzzling into her. Under the pretense of drunken solidarity, Alex tended to let more slip than was proper: “Astra tells me she… I mean, Kryptonians didn’t have the same programming for desire and sex like us, but it doesn’t mean she’s not lonely, Luce. A gorgeous suburbanite, all cooped up in that big house when Astra’s with me… you could play pool girl and have one helluva time.”

“Is she bothering you, Director Lane?” Astra said, hands propped imperiously on her hips and covered in a sleek black one-piece, her torrent of brown and bone-white curl saturated with salt water.

“Nothing I can’t handle, General,” Lucy pushed Alex off of her before slipping into the pool, transferring one tipsy agent to one sober Kryptonian.

She didn’t like to think of herself as jealous, or covetous, but there was no denying her grimace when Astra gracefully sat and sealed her lips over Alex’s, so gently, so possessively, heedless of human or alien reaction to excessive PDA. The smacking behind her forced Lucy underwater to clear her head. She pushed off the wall and paddled for the shallows, blinking against the sting of the salt water and gathering her courage to finally approach the patio table. It’s not like she’d harbored some lusty fantasy about using the pool… coming over under some false pretense of sunbathing until Kara was called away on Supergirl duties… and then… showing Alura just how… _companionable_ she could be.

It had been a while since she’d had anything to drink, and two light beers on an empty stomach left her more subdued at a party than she typically was. Best to get those specially roasted veggies in her stomach and stuff her face with a cup-cake to see if the sugar rush could tell her libido to calm the fuck down and stop fantasizing.

Seems the sun and all its brightness would have no mercy on her this day.

“Lucy!” Alura exclaimed, closing the sarong over miles of sinuous leg and muscle, the length of which Lucy would willingly climb with her tongue and teeth in an instant. Caught by eyes she hadn’t expected, Alura blushed prettily, fidgeting with the tie at her hip and the gauzy material that was proving too much for her Kryptonian strength. She’d nearly ripped the skirt in half when she’d caught Lucy’s eye, which would have left her in matching green bikini bottoms, cut high and tied together with the Strings of Possibility that Lucy despised beyond all else.

“Do… d-do you need—uh, help, Alura?” Lucy offered, abandoning the clear plastic plate and silverware, doing her best to keep her expression fixed on Alura’s face—not her boobs, _don’t do it Lane, please, for the love of God_ —

“Yes, I—yes, please, Lucy,” Alura said.

Context, Lucy chided herself. Because _yes-please-Lucy_ were the exact words she wanted to hear, down to the tremor on the last syllable of her name, but they were not alone and Alura just needed help with the damn _fabric,_ and just because Lucy was having a hard time with her attraction it didn’t mean that Alura reciprocated in the slightest.

Or maybe she did.

It would explain the blush. And the quiet nights spent talking back and forth over the last six months. It would explain why Alura’s eyes shined with mirth whenever Lucy made a joke about the LSAT, or why Alura smiled so genuinely whenever Lucy was around. It might even explain Alura’s clumsy attempts at flirtation—was this flirtation?—or was it merely Alura being terrible with fragile human materials?

Lucy took the ends of the tie and didn’t linger; she was effective, careful, and thorough. Twisting the ends this way and that, she looped the material over itself into a snug knot and quickly skimmed her fingers along the hem where she’d tied the piece, making sure Alura had breathing room.

“Too tight?” she asked, removing her fingers before she got herself in trouble with sinfully soft skin.

“Perfect,” Alura smiled, and Lucy nodded before stepping away.

“I’ve got cucumber and tomato salad in the refrigerator, if you’d like some,” Alura offered. “I remember you—you said your mother made you cucumber sandwiches when you and your sister were younger.”

When had she told Alura that? Was it during one of those endless nights while they waited for decisions from the powers that be, listening for the judgment of Alura’s classification as hostile or ally? Was it during the law school application process, where her crush had surpassed anything innocent and snowballed into full-blown attraction? When she stared for a beat too long at the eraser end of the pencil caught between Alura’s teeth? Or was it during one of their more recent conversations, which had been stilted and less fluid, primarily due to Lucy’s self-mandated disengagement? And why, despite her recent coldness, would Alura have gone out of her way to make a dish that Lucy loved?

“…would you like mine?” Alura asked uncertainly.

Lucy stood with the slotted spoon in hand, greek yogurt dripping from between the grooves. “Uh—”

“I’ll go get it!” Alura said quickly, “You’re serving yourself, I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have—I’ll just go get a small bit,” she repeated, disappearing inside quicker than Kara on a supersuit change.

Lucy barely had time to kick herself for her awkwardness before Alura was back, eyes wide, hands clutching a red bowl with cucumber and freshly chopped tomatoes from her garden, the whole dish sprinkled with dill and olive oil.

“This looks wonderful,” Lucy managed.

 _You_ look wonderful.

Good enough to eat, really.

“You’ve seriously outdone yourself hosting,” Lucy continued, setting her plate aside, reaching for the bowl. Her hands lingered against Alura’s fingers longer in the exchange than they should’ve, stroking a knuckle, the inside of her wrist, her smooth palm and all the many worlds it could hold. She bit her lip and looked down at the dish, hiding her embarrassment by twisting her lip-bite into grin, making a _yum_ sound, and finally pulling away. “I mean—you’ve even given Cat a run for her money with the Debbie-Homemaker theme,” Lucy joked.

“…Debbie is not my alias.”

Lucy laughed, brightly, easily, and it was like those first nights at the DEO when she’d been assigned to help with Alura’s study of America and modern California, when she’d played middleman to her and Kara, and her and Astra.

“Oh, an idiom, then,” Alura smiled at her misunderstanding, still somewhat proud that she did not fall into the literal understandings as often as her sister did, even though it did happen on occasion.

“Yeah, you’ve—you’ve really made us all feel welcome,” Lucy said.

“Consider it a favor returned,” Alura commented. “And a break from consistent study.”

“Yeah, how is one-L year treating you?” Lucy picked up on the thread of conversation, feeling the familiarity of long nights spent together simply talking, reform whatever it was that she had lost in the last month when she’d withdrawn from Alura.

“How did Astra put it?” Alura placed an index finger on her chin and feigned a look of thoughtfulness at the sky. She was about as over-the-top as one could be, and Lucy loved her for it. “Oh yes, it’s _kicking my ass_ ,” she said, turning her attention to rearrange the table, stacking empty platters underneath ones that still had food on them.

“Alex is proving a terrible influence on her if that kind of language is getting all the way back to you,” Lucy joked.

“I think Alexandra is proving a rather marvelous influence on her,” Alura countered, scanning the backyard for the mentioned pair, only to pull a grimace and look back at her work.

Lucy followed her eyes and scowled herself, noting that Alex and Astra hadn’t stopped sucking face since she’d left them pool side.

“Though both of them could learn more about _discretion_ , if they wanted any advice from me,” Alura grumbled.

“Yeah, they are kinda—”

Astra ran her fingers up Alex’s bare spine and fiddled with the string tying her swimsuit together. Alex slapped her fingers away which prompted a wolfish smile on Astra’s part before she quickly stood and beckoned Alex with outstretched arms, leading her back into the house through the washroom entrance and down the back hall to Astra’s room.

“—gross,” Lucy finished, staring down at her plate and _not_ feeling jealous, because that was a dumb thing to feel just because her friend was getting some action from a woman who sorta looked like the woman _Lucy_ wanted to get action from.

“Perhaps not the word I would use, but yes, the sentiment is accurate,” Alura responded. “ _Loud_ is another word I might use.”

Lucy perked up at that.

“Are they really that loud, or is it just your Kryptonian hearing?”

“A bit of both, I suppose,” Alura conceded. “Though Astra has taken mercy on my ears and my need for study, and remains at Alex’s more nights than she stays here,” Alura admitted.

“Oh,” Lucy said, thinking of beautiful Alura, kind and wise and studious, gnawing on a pen just a bit too hard, cracking the casing, splattering ink all over her face like she’d done while filling out paperwork at the DEO… with no one there to clean her up. Had Astra not been there to laugh and swipe away the blue ink staining her cheek, or had that been a moment she and Alura would always share?

“She’s still—she’s still looking out for you, though, right?”

“Of course,” Alura said, tucking one of her brown curls behind her ear. “She and I have fallen into much the same pattern as Alex and Kara. We are sisters, and we always will be, but… we have our own lives. We are notorious at the Farmer’s Market, however.”

Lucy wanted to mutter something along the lines of _can’t relate_ , still on the fence with Lois even after all these years. Alura knew about that strained relationship, but Lucy didn’t want to put a damper on the party. “I’ll bet you both make a killing at the market,” Lucy joked. “You’re every bored suburban dad’s dream come true.”

“Pardon?”

“You know, _twins_ ,” Lucy said, giggling, and then, immediately stopped giggling, because no—Alura _didn’t_ know. “Uhm, I—I only meant, uh, you’re… you know…” Lucy gulped, shoveling more corn salad onto her plate than she would ever eat. “… beautiful and uh, ha, single and—‘new ladies on the block’ and all.”

“Is that some sort of desired quality for women to possess on your planet?” Alura followed up. “Beauty, I understand… but novelty?”

Lucy felt her throat closing up.

“It’s just… uh… I don’t know, never mind me,” Lucy waved it off, thanking the higher powers that be that Alura didn’t ask the follow-up.

“Does this mean we are friends again, Lucy?”

“What?” Lucy asked, setting her plate aside to step closer out of instinct. “What do you mean, ‘again’?”

“We have not—you and I have not spoken like… as we once did, earlier this season,” Alura confessed, fiddling with the tie Lucy had looped in place, heavy-lidded gaze connecting with Lucy’s concerned stare and leaving a swooping sensation low in her belly that had nothing to do with Lucy’s aversion to corn salad. “I had wondered if I’d disappointed you in some way,” Alura whispered. “I’d do… well, I’d do _anything_ to reclaim what we had, Lucy.”

Oh, for the love of _fuck_ , universe!

“Oh, Alura, of course you haven't disappointed me!” Lucy soothed her and dared not read into anything, placing an open hand on Alura’s forearm. She squeezed gently to reassure, but again, dare not let herself keep touching Alura, because if she did, she might grow too used to the sensation and never stop. She might just grab her and drag her and turn her round to face the bathroom mirror, push her forward and grab and grind and kiss and—“I’ve had so much going on and—and with you starting classes early—I didn’t want to be a distraction.”

_Lies._

“A distraction?” Alura asked, for it seemed she did not experience the same problems that Lucy did. Some nights, Lucy found herself reading the same paragraph over and over again, absorbing none of the material in final reports… not when Alura was on her mind.

“For… school,” Lucy said blithely.

Alura didn’t believe her. She was too smart, to keen on the truth, had sentenced liars and criminals and mercenaries in years past, and Lucy was just a poor human with a crush. She could rely on cultural differences only so long, and could pray that those sexual mores on Krypton would do more to disguise her desire than her flimsy excuses could.

“…I mean, after Lord’s sentence, and my father’s on-going trial—”

Excuses, excuses, shit she was worried about and stressed over and bottling up because she hated being seen as the daughter who complained, who couldn’t stomach the real world like her older sister—so yeah, maybe she’d gotten a little wrapped up in a beautiful woman.

And maybe she just needed to _deal with it_ , she thought to herself.

“—I wouldn’t want to drag you into all of that,” Lucy finally finished.

“It seems a difficult burden to bear by oneself,” Alura said, smiling knowingly.

“I promise, you’ll be the first to know when the stress gets too intense,” Lucy laughed.

“Promise?” Alura asked, extending her hand. “On Krypton, your word is as good as a contract.”

“Promise, then,” Lucy said, shaking her hand to seal the deal. The tense atmosphere had lightened significantly, falling back as they did to old conversations and easy transitions. “This is a wonderful first step to helping me forget about all of that, though,” Lucy explained, gesturing vaguely toward the pool party beyond her. “It’s nice to be included.”

“You’re always welcome, Lucy,” Alura said, grabbing the platters to take inside. “I’m going to go get started on washing these—”

“Do you need help?” Lucy asked, for now that they’d reconnected, she didn’t want the interaction to end so soon.

“No, you go on,” Alura turned over her shoulder at the sliding glass door, one long line of unintentional but irresistible alien seduction. “Enjoy the party.”

Lucy did, somewhat reluctantly, reconnecting with her friends and stuffing herself with Alura’s amazing cucumber and tomato salad. And all the while she let her eyes move behind the shield of her sunglasses, watching Alura, and wondering if she’d ever be able to have her the way she wanted her.

 

* * *

 

 


	2. is she tryin' to give me the slip

Lucy placed the final casserole dish in the washer and hit the setting for ‘super scrub’ with a smug amount of glee.

She occasionally badgered Kara about the ‘super’ modifier, knowing it was nothing she could change; but nonetheless, Lucy found herself entertained by products like Super Sham-WOW! and Superfoods and Super Hair Plugs. She wiped down Alura and Astra’s kitchen counter one last time with a dish-towel, surveying her handiwork.

Most everyone had filtered out just before sunset. Alura had lit tiki-torches for the summer send-off and had prepared in case her guests desired to stay into the evening, but a day of drinking and gorging themselves on Alura’s food, plus the sun’s sapping rays (sapping for all but the Kryptonians, who were fairly tired themselves after flying around and diving in and out of the pool) had left the entire party ready to check out early. But Alura had slipped away to take care of sending everyone off with all of the extra beach-bags and towels they’d brought, so Lucy made herself useful in the kitchen. She worked thoroughly, keeping a tidy apartment herself, scrubbing baked-on food remnants from Pyrex casserole dishes and rearranging the items on the top shelf of the dishwasher for more space—Kara had likely just thrown the cups in, and it had taken weeks to train James into putting the damn things in upside down so the water didn’t collect.

Finishing up the final pile of dirty dishes was the absolute least she could do.

Satisfied with the gleam of the granite, Lucy went back outside to do a final sweep around the pool, making sure there were no leftover towels or sunscreen bottles or beer cans or what not that Alura would have to clean up later. She got sidetracked on her way once she passed the pantry, and decided to go ahead and take out the trash so the kitchen wouldn't stink of cantelope and watermelon rinds come morning. She crossed paths with on final casserole dish with baked-on cheese, so she headed back to the faucet to run steamy water and left it to soak in the sudsy heat. She checked some emails for ten minutes when she heard Alex and Astra finally depart on Alex's bike, that noisy exhaust valve popping as they zoomed out of the cul-de-sac.

Lucy set the phone aside, weary of her workweek already (and it hadn't even started yet). Scrubbing took her mind off things, her father, her promotion to director at the desert base, the disappearance of the Omegahedron after Lord’s arrest, and, for a small time, Alura.

She looked up from her work at the sink and discovered the tiki-torches were still burning in the back. If she went and extinguished them, it would be one less job for Alura, and, consequently, might prolong the weekend just a tad bit longer.

As she slid the back door open, she jumped a little at the smooth line that cut the water in half, waves slapping the sides of the pool as a lone figure flipped right before colliding with the far wall, completing a lap in the aquamarine glow of the pool.

_Alura_.

Lucy had wondered where she’d gotten off to, thinking she’d been preoccupied with goodbyes. She felt somewhat voyeuristic, staring at the woman without her knowledge, observing the way her arms came down to scoop water behind her, to pull her form against the water with the unbridled strength of a superhuman. Lucy wondered if Alura was holding back, thinking a single stroke from that leonine musculature could shoot her the length of the pool and then into the concrete siding. But Alura, in all her super-human-ness, must have noticed her, for she surfaced on her turn back.

She came forth like some sea siren, her face breaking the water first so that her hair would swoop back over her head, puffing out a little breath so spittle and pool water dripped down her neck and ran in lines over her collar bone, her barely covered breasts, down her torso to secret points south. She moved gracefully as her hips emerged, rocking with her steps as she climbed the stairs out of the shallow-end, arms at her side, dripping, barely clothed, looking for all the world like a _Sports Illustrated_ model. 

Lucy whimpered.

“Are you okay?” Alura asked, staring at Lucy curiously.

“I am so fine,” Lucy eloquently replied.

“I thought everyone left,” Alura began, reaching for a towel and turning away from Lucy immediately, covering herself by wrapping the fabric round her hips. Her face was blood-red, eyes averted, movements twitchy, embarrassed at having been caught swimming in next-to-nothing.

Lucy thought of holo-Alura in her royal-blue robes, why Alura had insisted on her sarong, why she also always seemed to wear long skirts and loose jeans, even when she was working in the garden during a California summer. And Astra always kept herself covered in that Kryptonian one-piece, even if it was tighter than what Astra usually wore in her civilian attire. Both of their outfits, plus Alura’s reaction…

Was it… was it _legs_?

Legs and thighs and ankles and knees and what they led to, that might suggest something prurient or salacious. It might also explain why Alura always acted strangely when Lucy showed up to the house with Kara in blue-jean cut-offs that one Saturday afternoon, or that night before she’d gone undercover with Alex at Max’s party, (where she’d worn that stupidly short cocktail dress), and Alura had excused herself abruptly.

Oh…

Oh god…

Alura—Alura was _attracted_ to her. Maybe she didn’t want her as intensely, or even have the same feelings developing like Lucy did, but that sure as hell didn’t mean that Lucy wasn’t at least somewhat… somewhat _wanted_ in her eyes.

It made Lucy feel better.

A little better, anyway, but she still didn’t want to flaunt it. Tease, maybe, with one more beer in her system, but not torture the woman.

“I didn’t mean to make you stop doing your laps,” Lucy said, ambling down the stairs and over toward where Alura mopped at her shoulders, ringing her wet hair out. The torches cast her in silhouette and Lucy thought of tiny flames on candles, in a bedroom, their shadows cast on the wall behind them while her head stayed buried between Alura’s legs. “I could race you, if you, y’know, hold back a bit,” Lucy said, popping the button of her blue-jean shorts, moving her fingers to clasp the zippered fly. She had her suit on underneath and Alura knew this, but it was still thrilling getting a reaction.

Alura’s eyes grew large as saucers as she saw Lucy move, but she stayed her hand.

“No that’s alright, I’m—Lucy, your shoulders!”

“What?” Lucy asked, twisting her neck down toward the tops of her shoulders. She didn’t really see anything—

“They’re red as Rao’s light,” Alura muttered, tenderly pressing a finger to the top layer of skin.

Lucy winced slightly, drawing back from hands that weren’t extremely warm, but seeing, and suddenly _feeling_ , just how sunburned she’d gotten from her hours by the pool, negligent in her sun-screen application.

“Come on, I have aloe inside,” Alura said, expertly evading Lucy’s little show.

Perhaps it was a sign, Lucy thought, sent by the melanin gods.

_Don’t play with a woman’s emotions when she’s an intergalactic refugee, Lucille_.

Alura led her inside and ushered her into the guest bathroom. She rummaged through the drawers before emerging with a huge bottle of gelatinous aloe, died bright blue and smelling of menthol.

“… can you take your shirt off?” Alura said, brow furrowed as Lucy reached for the hem of it and started to pull. She wrestled with the material, wincing as her shoulders drew together and the skin folded in on itself.

_Dammit_.

When she hadn’t realized she was burned, it certainly didn’t hurt as much.

“Don’t,” Alura said, holding her hands, pulling them back down. “You…don’t want to agitate the skin,” she mumbled.

“What?”

Lucy watched Alura but Alura couldn’t meet her eye. Instead, she focused on the hem of Lucy’s tank-top: loose-fitting, semi-tattered.

“Are you particularly fond of this material?” Alura asked, fingering the hem of the shirt lightly. Lucy searched her expression, wondering if her careful, demure demeanor was really just a cover-up for feelings significantly less… demure.

“No,” Lucy answered. “It’s old, got it at a dollar store,” she explained, watching as Alura’s fingers tightened against the strip at the bottom.

“Would you care if I… that is, you’re still wearing your suit?”

“Yes,” Lucy said, knowing where this was going, but still wanting Alura to have to _say_ it.

“Would you like—I, I mean… would you care if I,” Alura dipped her head down and stared figurative lasers into the material covering Lucy’s torso. “… ripped it?” she almost whispered.

“I think it’s fine if you rip this shirt off of me, Alura,” Lucy replied evenly, guiding Alura’s hands closer to the center of the fabric. “You know, so I don’t hurt myself reaching round it.”

Alura nodded absently while she gathered her courage and focused on not overexerting her strength. It was endearing and also... super fucking hot.

“Very well,” Alura said, biting her lip and _ripping the shirt in two_ off Lucy’s body.

Lucy kept careful eye-contact as Alura flushed, staring directly at Lucy's chest as she tugged at what was left of the shirt.

God, had Lucy ever seen her flush this much? Was it just the sun? Did Kryptonians get sunburned, too? That would explain the half-gallon of aloe Alura was currently twisting the cap off of, dipping two fingers inside, swirling them, stroking them around the opening of the bottle in and out, in and out of the lotion to get her fingers all wet and glistening and ready for Lucy—

“I’ll turn around,” Lucy squeaked, tossing the torn shirt aside carelessly.

She twisted to face the counter and met Alura’s eyes behind hers in the mirror. Stare downcast and hooded, pupils blown black beneath the harsh light over the bathroom sink, it felt like Alura might run away if she ever properly looked Lucy in the eye.

Plus, it was a tight squeeze in the bathroom for what they were trying to do, wedged back-to-front between the linen closet and the counter that housed the sink. If it had been the master bath, they might have had more room to maneuver, but no—Alura had led them into the one room in the house that would force her to sidle up behind Lucy and press into her, damp suit occasionally brushing Lucy’s back, hips tucking into her just slightly until Alura noted their proximity and scooted back, casting her gaze down to her goo-covered hands.

“It’s alright, Alura,” Lucy tried for a reassuring smile, but her voice was jagged, like the broken glass of a whisky bottle. She draped her short hair round her neck and twisted it up quickly, wincing as her shoulders bunched and then relaxed, still vibrant pink under the bathroom light.

Hair off her neck. Shoulders bare. The straps of her suit were still in place, but she wasn’t going to push her luck. Not with Alura afraid to meet her eyes, even in the mirror.

“Alura,” Lucy called again, and Alura finally looked up at her.

It was safer this way, this acknowledgement in the mirror, one remove away from properly staring at each other. Because Alura wasn’t looking at her directly, that beautiful, hesitant grey, not quite brave enough to reach out and ask, not yet, not without Lucy to show her the way.

“It’s alright,” Lucy repeated with a reassuring smile, no tease to it. She placed both hands down against the counter-top, palms flat, head bowed, breaking that thrilling and terrifying eye contact they held in the mirror.

“Just… warn me if it’s cold,” she murmured.

“Yes, well… here we go?”

Alura traced fingertips at first, so light, ticklish even, along the burned expanses of Lucy’s skin. It was superficial really, less about touch, more about the application of the soothing balm, and definitely, definitely not about eye contact. But those fingers made swirls and tracks over Lucy's skin, pressed ever-so softly. Lucy tried to find some surreptitious meaning in the touch, a pattern in the traces, as if she could glean Alura's secret attraction from her hands even if she couldn't form the words.

But no message ever came through. Alura, High Counselwoman and professional mom friend, was so business-like it almost felt impersonal; she would slick her fingers in the aloe and return to swiping Lucy’s shoulders, her neck, her spine, trotting down her back to the concave slope of her small waist. And as she did, she moved, closer to Lucy, away from Lucy, careful not to brush skin or material against Lucy’s bare back, even more careful to breathe regularly, though Lucy suspected she’d stopped breathing altogether, until—

“Thank you, Alura,” Lucy groaned. “That feels so—”

_Shit_.

She was NOT supposed to be groaning when Alura touched her.

“—cool, feels… c-cool,” she mumbled, trying to ignore the devil on her shoulder telling her to press her ass back into Alura’s hips and start grinding away.

Alura didn’t look up in the mirror again, perhaps assuming Lucy still had her head bowed, perhaps thinking she wouldn’t be seen. But her eyes shut tight and her jaw tightened, clamping down on a sound, a breath, a… a _moan_ , god, Lucy thought (hoped).

Was Alura trying to suppress a _moan_ for her?

Alura twitched once she reached the small of Lucy’s back, surprised to find her path impeded by those distracting blue-jean cut-offs. After a clumsy attempt at reaching for the aloe and avoiding every inch of Lucy’s exposed skin, she knocked the aloe from its perch on the countertop, releasing a soft, surprised, _“Oh!”_

Her superspeed saved it from splattering on the ground, but it left the woman on her knees behind Lucy and hell—shit—fuck—there were not enough swears in the galaxy for Lucy to think to get the release she needed, not the one stoking the heat between her legs, the one that flared to life like lighter fluid on a charcoal grill.

Because there was Alura.

On her _knees_.

Just for Lucy.

“Lucy?”

Lucy looked down at bright-eyed Alura, huffing tiny breaths from a mouth gone slack.

She wanted to touch her. God, she wanted to grab her and haul her up and kiss that uncertain expression right off her face. Lucy wanted Alura behind her with those sparkling eyes, meeting hers in the mirror, slicking her fingers in her cunt and fucking her over the bathroom counter while Lucy moaned against her neck.

“The backs of my legs must be red, too,” Lucy mumbled, giving Alura the out she so desperately needed. “Since… since you’re down there—”

“Of course,” Alura said, trembling fingers touching the muscles of her calves, trailing up to the sensitive underside of her knee. She worked round the muscle along her shins and up to her knee cap her quads, her thighs, fingers wrapping around the flesh there and not meaning to squeeze, not really, but damn if Lucy didn’t let her head loll forward in bliss, sighing her pleasure from even the lightest of touches.

It had just been _so long_ , probably since James, so any kind of touch would’ve left her weak. But Alura? Genius, beautiful, regal Alura, skimming her thighs with her fingertips while they were completely alone? It felt like that sweet-spot right after the second cocktail, not quite tipsy, but just addled enough to do something reckless. It felt like the giddy anticipation of Christmas Eve. It wasn't quite to the sticky, hot closeness of sex yet—she’d damn well draw the parallel if she ever got Alura in her bed—but it was so painfully close to that Lucy had to grip the counter harder and try not to make a sound that might betray her feelings.

Alura worked the aloe in tight circles along every exposed inch of Lucy’s skin, methodical, deliberate, lingering just a moment longer on the inside of Lucy’s left thigh.

Lucy fought the gasp, but couldn’t control it.

“Lucy?”

“Yes?” she almost snapped, barely managing to eek out the syllable as Alura’s long fingers swiped beneath the hemline of her cut-offs to nudge her ass.

“Just… making sure your skin isn't stinging.”

“It’s fine, just… didn’t realized I’d gotten burned so badly— _eep_!”

Lucy’s head snapped down; she saw Alura’s grin, her careful exhale, which caused her to yelp again when the breath passed over her skin.

“Sorry, I—” Alura drew back, settling back on her knees with her hands in her lap as she puffed tiny clouds of icy breath before her. “I thought it might help.”

_Help_ was one word for it, Lucy thought, but icy breath against her overheated skin and Alura’s hands on her body nearly _helped_ her ruin her friendship with this woman. Because she was wet, and she was needy, and a little bit of extreme temperatures could have her climaxing in a second.

“No, it’s… I just wasn’t expecting it, was all,” Lucy tried to backtrack, to let her know this _was not a big deal._ “Do that again, please,” Lucy requested, thinking about burying her hand in Alura’s wet curls, guiding her head up, gently encouraging her with her lips. “The ice breath, it—it was soothing.”

“Oh, I—you will tell me if it’s too much?” Alura asked.

“I will... let you know my limits,” Lucy nodded.

Alura practically jumped back into position, pursing her lips near Lucy’s leg. She dipped down to blow gentle breath against her ankles, the knots of her spine protruding, her bare back exposed for Lucy’s eyes alone. Lucy felt the cold snake up her legs and she shivered, feeling the heat leached out, her skin and her receptors confused by the temperature changes, her mind over-excited by Alura’s breath. Her eyes feasted on Alura’s body, no longer covered by the beach towel.

Just Alura, casually kneeling in a bikini on the tile floor, her lips hovering mere centimeters away from Lucy's hip bone.

Just your normal, everyday, _friendly_ interaction.

Alura never touched her again. Not once, but she worked her way up the back of Lucy’s body, blowing against her skin, tiny bursts of regulated, cool air, hitting the minty aloe and setting Lucy’s nerves ablaze so that she had to lock her elbows to hold herself up on the damn bathroom counter. Alura ascended, breaths like a caress, thorough, deliciously so, forcing Lucy to bite back a cry when Alura blew between her legs. She finally returned to Lucy’s lower back, blowing with such concentration, if felt as if her lips were pressing to each part of Lucy’s skin, little cold kisses along her spine that soothed and sparked and left Lucy a twitching, wanton mess who couldn’t get a damn ounce of friction because she’d planted her feet wide and didn’t dare shift with Alura so close.

There was something titillating in the restraint, in the notion that Alura had barely touched her. But Alura’s desire to help, Lucy’s reassurance, that attractive attention-to-detail that Alura exhibited in party planning and—dare she call this medical attention?—it made Lucy think that Alura would be beyond meticulous if set to sexual endeavors.

Lucy dared to rock forward into the cabinet, wondering if she could grind into the fabric of her jean shorts. She shouldn’t. So she didn’t. But the tiny step forward made soaking fabric brush against her core just as Alura blew another stream of breath right below the strap of her top, producing a full-body shudder that left Lucy’s nipples rock-hard beneath her suit.

“Lucy?”

“Hmm?”

“… your skin is red beneath the straps.”

Lucy met her eyes in the mirror and they were a touch more confident, less shifty, but no less bright. Alura ran one of her dry fingers along the material on Lucy’s back, and Lucy couldn’t suppress the smirk in the mirror. “I’m sure you know better than to leave a job half done, counselor.”

“Here,” Alura grinned at her, blushing again as she passed Lucy a hand-towel.

Lucy covered up her front with the towel as she felt Alura’s fingers working at the straps of her suit. Alura carefully tugged the halter tie at Lucy’s neck and Lucy let the straps fall, shifting again, another brush to the core, inadvertently palming and pressing against her own breast through the towel. It wasn’t much, but God, Alura was _undressing_ her.

Alura unhooked the strap beneath her shoulder blades and her swimsuit top fell open, the straps slapping her triceps and tickling her armpits. Alura kept her eyes fixed on Lucy’s back and dared not let them dip down to where Lucy struggled to cover herself with the towel. Meanwhile, Lucy was doing everything in her power not to drag the towel material against her nipples that _wanted_ that icy breath, and then the warm swallow of Alura’s mouth. Alura hummed and dipped two fingers back into the gel, smothering Lucy’s back with more of the medicated aloe before closing in, close enough that Lucy felt her nose brush along her skin, to blow a stream of ice-cold breath against the spots previously covered by the straps.

“Would you want me to do this again, Lucy?”

Again, forever, yes. Yes, most definitely.

“Uh…” Lucy caught Alura’s glance in the mirror, curious. “Sorry?”

“When? You’ll need to apply this again, I know,” Alura said, looking as if she were leaning too close, too far in, like her lips might finally make contact and then that erotic insubstantiality would evaporate as soon as it began—

“Uhm, later this week, I guess?” Lucy said, clearing her throat, suppressing the second wave of a shiver that came from those icy lips in such close proximity with her naked shoulder. “I’ve got to be back at headquarters so I’ll just have to work through the pain a little.”

“I wish there was something I could do,” Alura commented. “It was my party after all. I should have reminded you and Alex—”

“You’ve done a lot!” Lucy said. “Besides, we’re adult women who can look after our own skin care. This was… this was very helpful, Alura, really.”

_Too helpful_ , she thought.

Because now visions of her banging her best friend’s mom six ways from Sunday were not going to be easily erased from her brain.

“Well… you should at least come over later this week, when you have an afternoon to yourself. I can reapply then.”

“We’ll see if it’s still that bad,” Lucy said. “I peel pretty easily.”

Alura screwed her face up. “I’m sorry… _peel_?!”

“Oh yeah,” Lucy smirked. “See, humans are like reptiles, snakes specifically, and we have to shed our skin anyway—”

Alura huffed. “I do not like it when you tease me.”

“I think you do,” Lucy said lightly.

Alura cocked a brow at her and slid out from behind her, leaving her to pull her suit back together with a shake of her head.

“Perhaps I do,” Alura admitted. “But I am not above retaliation. I do live with a military strategist.”

“I _am_ a military strategist.”

“She has several decades on you,” Alura said. “And something of a draw with human women. Perhaps I will take her advice, hmm?” Alura grinned, slipping out of the bathroom and pulling the door closed, leaving Lucy to wonder if she’d just signed her own death certificate.

 

* * *

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> alura is very concerned with lucy's skin care regiment ;)


	3. do you remember when I mowed your lawn

One week later, Lucy was back in suburbia with a better attitude and an impressive tan.

There’d been the invitation earlier in the week any way: the, _you should have someone rub aloe on your back ~~and sit on your face~~_ , invitation, and that hadn’t been a huge deal. It was a joke, Lucy thought. A not-entirely-innocent-in-the-slightest joke, that somehow ended up with Lucy back at Alura’s suburban retreat on a Saturday afternoon because her friend had invited her over to her mother's place again, just the two of them this time. Astra was out, so she and Kara had been wrangled into helping Alura mow and manicure and weed a lawn that already looked like something out of _The Stepford Wives_ ; but then, almost _too_ conveniently, Supergirl was called away to save a city in crisis.

_Sure, Kara,_ Lucy wanted to grumble. _When your mother has the pool ready for use you’re excited to come visit, but when she needs a little help in the yard, there’s suddenly a fire in the warehouse district._

But time alone with Alura wasn’t so bad. Far from it. Now that Lucy had gotten rid of the idiotic notion that she couldn’t share space with the woman without wanting to jump her bones, things would be easier. She was Alura’s friend first, and really did enjoy the little moments spent debating recently passed legislation and eye-rolling over much of it. It was nice, easy, even, spending time with another person who shared similar interests.

Even after Kara departed in a swirl of red and blue, Lucy took Alura up on her offer of an afternoon of gardening:

("I promise to pay you in cucumber and tomato salad and lemonade, if you’ll have it."

"Freshly squeezed?" Lucy had asked.

"Of course! I don’t make it any other way, not with my new-found strength."

"Who would’ve figured the real super power was the Kryptonian juicer?" Lucy had quipped, following Alura to the garden shed in search of tools for the yard.)

Of course, Lucy might have said yes to just about anything if Alura was going to keep wearing the cutest pair of overalls Lucy had ever seen in her life. And perhaps Lucy had never really been inclined to purchase overalls before (she did keep designer track pants in her closet), but she wouldn’t begrudge appropriate work-wear on Alura, no matter how distractingly adorable they were. A blue and white polka-dotted blouse peeked out over the denim to complete the ensemble, and Alura had her hair pulled back beneath a handkerchief.

It was just… unfair, that’s what it was.

But no, gardening, hanging out— _that’s_ what she was here for. Lucy had to give herself a good mental slap after eyeing Alura’s backside in the shed when she’d bent over to retrieve the hedge clippers.

“You’ve got the flower power,” Lucy had said before they’d really gotten dirty. “And the green thumb.”

Alura had stared at her hand in question, flipping her palm over backwards.

“What I mean to say is, the last succulent I kept by my desk died, and they’re ‘hard to kill’, according to my sister. I say you take the flower bed and I’ll handle the heavy machinery.” Lucy had thumbed over to the lawn mower and Alura had nodded graciously.

“That’s wonderful to hear, Lucy,” Alura said. “I rather hate that monstrosity. It’s so loud despite the ear plugs the DEO gave me.”

“I’m happy to help,” Lucy chirped, pivoting round to see about messing with the lawn mower even though she’d lived at military bases and apartment complexes her whole life, and had operated a lawn mower all of three times in her existence.

“It’s not self-propelled!” Alura yelled at Lucy, who kept her back turned and frantically Googled a Wiki-How article on starting the damn thing. It couldn’t be too terribly different from a motorbike, right?

Carburetor, choke, throttle, starter-cord—okay, one more time.

Lucy used all of her wiry DEO strength to yank the starter cord back two or three times and then, miraculously, the thing came to life. While it thrummed and gurgled, Alura bent down to her knees and began tugging at green things, green things Lucy deduced were more weed than flower, given Alura’s zest for tugging at them. Lucy began the loop about the front yard and settled in for a bit of a workout, throwing her weight against the machine and making sure she took the blade’s width into consideration. She didn’t want the grass to look crooked or wonky or unbalanced, because then maybe Alura wouldn’t invite her back. If she could bluff her way through yard work, maybe this could turn into a regular ole’ hang-out sesh with—with her friend?

Is that all Alura was?

Lucy huffed and cut a corner a little sharp, pushing the thought down. She could see Alura’s head bobbing back across the yard near the shrubbery in front of the house, but her mind wouldn’t stop churning.

Alex still gave her shit at work. Kara still invited her to game night like Lucy wasn’t contemplating the ultimate betrayal. And J’onn’s periodic check-ins were so by-the-book, Lucy didn’t think he suspected a thing.

Maybe she should just be satisfied with friendship and camaraderie. Just because they shared judicial interests and similar characteristics (tidiness, a love for cooking) didn’t mean they were perfectly compatible. For example, Lucy was _not_ about yard work, even though Alura seemed really into it. Plus, Lucy had never once seen Alura in the sparring room… she almost wondered if Alura was a pacifist.

So.

Friendship.

Friends went through laborious tasks in the September sun just for the chance of hanging out afterwards… it was basically the same kind of physical labor as helping put a futon together, or helping someone move. She’d done that before. Granted, she’d never really wanted to kiss those people, but Lucy was a trooper.

She could _do_ this.

She let her mind wander as the mower droned on. She cut close around the mailbox and made sure to double back over the front walk after she raised the mower deck an inch for more precision. She wasn’t sure if Alura had a weed-wacker in her little garden shed out by the pool in the back, so she wanted to at least do a somewhat thorough job near the curbs. She was just contemplating the left side of the yard when she felt a heavy pressure on her shoulder.

She buckled down to one knee under the weight, and the mower shot out in front of her and puttered until it died without her hand holding onto the safety handle. Lucy stared at it, perplexed at how she'd ended up kneeling in the grass in Alura’s front yard.

“Oh! Lucy, I’m so sorry!” Alura exclaimed.

Lucy turned round and looked up at Alura and… well… this was an interesting role reversal from the other evening, not that Lucy was complaining all that much. Even looking up at Alura in dirty overalls got Lucy’s insides feeling sufficiently twisted, which pretty much nixed all hopes of _friendliness_ from her options.

Lucy sighed, defeated. Looks like it was back to sexual frustration and unrequited pining until she snapped out of it.

Alura smiled that restrained little smile that always looked like it could get bigger, but she was still beautiful. Even with soil smudges on her cheek and leaves in her hair, the woman exuded otherworldly beauty.

“I just wanted to let you know I was heading in to get started on the lemonade,” Alura said, reaching down to haul Lucy up by her hand. “I didn’t mean to startle you or—well, I guess my powers are poorly regulated when I get near that kind of sensation,” Alura motioned toward the immobile mower.

“No, it’s—it’s no problem,” Lucy said, running a hand round her head to smooth her flyaways down. She could feel the grit from the oil and dirt on her hands and hoped her face didn’t look terrible. Her legs sure did, what with all the grass clippings and dirt clods sticking to her sweaty knees. Lucy just knew the skin above her sock line probably looked two shades darker than her foot.

“I can’t—” Lucy huffed a breath in through her nose. She hadn’t realized how much she’d really put into moving that thing forward inch by laborious inch. “—can’t believe you got through all those weeds that quick.”

Alura’s eyes twinkled. “Well, I did weed the back beds as well.”

“Even the vegetable patch?”

“The fences are high enough that neighbors cannot see me use my speed,” Alura shrugged. “If they question me about flying dirt, I can always adopt an animal of some sort.”

Alura in overalls.

Alura with a _puppy_ in overalls.

Lucy was well on her way to melting into a puddle of goop.

“Oh, I see. I’m just here to help with your cover, aren’t I?” Lucy asked, wrinkling up her nose against the dust and swiping at it with her dirtied sleeve. Hardly the most lady-like of manners, but she didn’t imagine Alura would appreciate a sneeze in her face.

“And I am very much obliged for your aid,” Alura returned. “You’ve only this one section to finish, correct?”

“Unless you want me to take power-clippers to the hedge-rows,” Lucy eyed the bushes separating Alura and Astra’s front yard from their next-door neighbor’s.

“That won’t be necessary, Scott likes to do it himself,” Alura said.

“Scott?”

“Our neighbor,” Alura said. “He keeps an impeccable landscape.”

“I bet his wife doesn’t have near the garden you do, though.”

“Oh, Scott’s not married,” Alura remarked. “But he does have an excellent knowledge of horticultural growth in this climate. He has assisted me on many occasions.”

“Oh,” Lucy muttered, deciding that the red slash across her vision and _Kill Bill_ sirens blaring in her ears were not signs of jealousy; she also decided that _Scott_ was the shittiest, dickiest accountant-playboy name she’d ever heard.

“Well," Lucy replied with a tight smile. "It’s nice to have friendly neighbors.”

“It is. Oh look, there—hello, Scott!” Alura stood on her tip-toes and waved at him over the hedge rows, and Lucy most certainly didn’t pout, if anyone asked.

Burley, hipster, and handsome, Scott looked like the off-brand version of the paper towel guy, who, admittedly, had a little something going on, but Scott was in no way good enough for Alura. He waved from his front walk and beamed back at the pair of them, his face falling just a bit when Lucy flipped him off from behind Alura’s back. He made a quick motion toward his scampering dog, a big golden lab, and took off after it as it chased a squirrel.

And of course he was tall and bearded and had soulful eyes, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t a flannel-wearing, farmer’s-market-attending, Bon-Iver-listening, grade-A douche canoe.

But with Alura single, just moved in, and her love of all things farmer’s market-like…

This was going to turn into a full-blown Hallmark Channel movie, which, A) of all, those movies were cheesy and sappy and dopey as hell; B) of all, Lucy still kinda liked them, filing them away in the same category as her chick lit; and C) of all, there were never any bisexual ladies in any of those quaint cottages that just so happened to be vacant and affordable for the charming stranger new to the area, so really, how the hell was _Lucy_ ever going to get her cute little love story if the network never thought about giving the gays a bone?

In the metaphorical way, Lucy thought.

“Ah, lemonade,” Alura said, motioning over her shoulder.

“Right, better get back to it,” Lucy said, turning around to the mower. She tried not to look glum, but didn’t really succeed. The good-natured teasing and bright prospect of Alura’s company for the next few hours had dimmed significantly under the cloud of paper-towel ma _Scott_ , and all of his flannel-shirted horticultural sensibilities.

Lucy cranked the mower and gave it such a violent push she dug a rut into the yard. Even the thought of Alura in overalls with freshly squeezed lemonade didn’t cheer her up.

* * *

 

However, the reality of Alura in a towel with freshly squeezed lemonade most certainly did.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Lucy is normally not the jealous type but she would probably hire a sniper if anyone ever hit on Alura


	4. with just a towel on

_Even the thought of Alura in overalls with freshly squeezed lemonade didn’t cheer her up._

* * *

 

However, the reality of Alura in a towel with freshly squeezed lemonade cheered her up immensely.

“Oh my god,” Lucy said, holding her sneakers and sweat-drenched socks in one hand, reaching to prop herself up against the door jamb to the kitchen with the other.

Because Alura in a towel.

_Alura in a towel!_

“Lucy, wonderful, I was coming for you.”

“…what?”

“Aren’t you finished?” Alura asked, pressing against the fabric knotted in between her breasts while extending the glass of lemonade in Lucy’s direction.

Lucy might’ve taken the lemonade. Or dropped it. Or drank it. Looking back, she would never be entirely sure.

“I was coming to get you out of the heat,” Alura amended, turning on her heel to disappear beyond the door to the refrigerator, which gave Lucy the split second she needed to collect herself and actually blink for a moment. Lemonade. Right. She took a sip, and it was, well, the best lemonade she’d ever tasted, sure. As if Lucy had any doubts that it would be. But also Alura in the refrigerator...

No, that’s not right.

Alura in a _towel_.

“I know you really only came by to use the pool with Kara, but I could use a human’s expertise with one final project.”

“Oh, I—uh, sure, but…”

Alura shut the door and turned again, never quite meeting Lucy’s face. Her eyes were on Lucy’s bare feet, or her hand clutching the lemonade glass, or her grass-covered knees, or on some other unimportant part of her. Alura couldn’t… Alura couldn’t _look_ at her.

She didn’t give Lucy a chance to finish the lemonade.

“It’s just down here,” Alura called from the hallway.

“Okay, I—Alura, Alura, wait!”

Lucy threw her shoes and socks against the entry way and attempted to navigate Alura’s pristine hard-wood floors without shedding too much grass everywhere, but she didn’t really know where—wait, was the shower running?

Alura still had some dirt on her arms and it would explain the towel; but maybe it’s a blown light bulb or… or a leaky pipe or… something, something Lucy probably couldn’t fix, something as _Scott_ probably could.

Lucy turned into Alura’s bedroom and forced herself not to think of Scott, concentrating instead on what really mattered: Alura in a towel.

Lucy concentrated on the light spilling in from the window behind Alura and haloing her softly; she focused on the intense study Alura called forth when she picked up one container of shower gel after another, uncapped them, sniffed, read the labels, and then rifled through the cellophane and ribbon on what looked to be a care package propped atop her bathroom vanity. The dirt smudges weren’t on her face anymore, but there was still some grime on her arms and just around her ankles. Her legs though, they were clean and muscled and long and had been protected by those splendid overalls. The towel she had wrapped round her frame was lavender and soft-looking, and made her eyes reflect that perfect shade of thunder-grey.

Altogether, it was a simple, classic sort of beauty that had always been appealing to Lucy. It was really no wonder she fell as quickly as she did.

Lucy hesitantly crossed the large room and glanced at the California king at her left, the mountain of pillows, the plush fleece throw at the bottom…

Did Alura get lonely in that big bed, all by herself?

“So,” Alura said, turning to Lucy. “Alex tells me that Astra accidentally put her DEO clothing into the dishwasher, because Alex was remiss in not distinguishing between the two types of ‘washing machines’.”

“Did she really?” Lucy asked, bemused at the turn the afternoon had taken.

“Such tales of my sister’s startling ineptitude—”

“Come on, she was _learning_ —”

“Her carelessness for most matters domestic, then,” Alura rectified with a haughty tut, “… has made me something of a… what’s the word? Stickler? I’m a stickler for adhering to directions.”

“Vacuum cleaners rarely explode in your face if you read the manual correctly,” Lucy confirmed.

“To that end…” Alura unknotted the tie at her chest with one hand and reached for a bottle with another. Lucy couldn’t tell if the air was simply thick from the steam of the shower or if she was drowning in her own hormones.

Alura shucked the towel and stood straighter, taller than she normally did, head held high and chest—oh bless, her _chest_ —puffed out like she had something to be proud of, and hot damn.

Did she ever.

“… _Alura?!_ ” Lucy squeaked, a pitchy, reedy kind of noise that somewhat resembled Alura’s name.

“Kara got me a care package when I began taking classes because she knew how stressful it would be.”

Lucy took a deep breath before continuing: “I fail to see how your enrollment in law school has anything to do with you being naked." She was somehow succeeding at the Herculean task of keeping her eyes on Alura’s face.

Alura grinned again and Lucy thought she was fiddling with that damn shower gel but couldn’t be certain, couldn’t be sure, because she most certainly was NOT going to be looking down even if she did have to crane her neck up just a bit to catch nothing more than a collar bone that was, frankly, begging to be bitten.

Alura’s grey eyes locked onto Lucy’s and her voice dipped to rumbling octaves that Lucy had never heard from Alura before: “Do you have any objections, counselor?” she asked, moving a step closer to finger the hem of Lucy’s shirt.

“None in the slightest,” Lucy replied. “But…can you establish relevance?”

“Goes to motive.”

“You mean to say there’s a _reason_ that you lured me back here just to throw your towel on the ground and make my knees go weak?” Lucy dared to ask, because Alura was so fucking close and Lucy was really only human, and also… boobs.

And with them both barefoot, and the bit of height Alura had on her, there was just… just a lot going on at Lucy’s eye level.

“If you’ll let me build my case,” Alura mumbled, tugging at the hem of Lucy’s shirt and—and pulling? Yes, definitely pulling, _lifting_ even, because who in their right mind needed shirts in bathrooms and court proceedings? Certainly not Lucy. She’d lose shirt after shirt as long as Alura was the one responsible for taking them off of her.

“You may proceed,” Lucy said, lifting her arms and blowing a stray lock of hair out of her eyes. Alura pulled the curl back behind her ear and waved her fingers through the shorter strands that had fallen out of her ponytail before gently tugging on the elastic band at the back of Lucy’s head. Lucy shook her hair out with the biggest damn smile on her face, hedging on giddiness given the turn of events.

“Well, Kara gave me this lovely aromatic shower gel, and I was reading the ingredients, and the directions, and I found them curious.”

Alura’s hands migrated down toward the button at Lucy’s shorts and Lucy clenched her abs. She was sweaty and nervous, and most certainly didn’t smell aromatic, not after all that work in the yard. She had blots of mascara running down her cheeks, never mind the “waterproof label” they put on the cap.

(“Why are you wearing mascara to the pool anyway?” Kara had asked. “It’s just gonna come off.”

“We don’t all look like sunkissed goddesses all the time, Kara. Sometimes humans just want their eyes to pop.”

“Awe, Lucy, you don’t have to get all dolled up for me.”

Ha.

HA!)

Kara was the absolute last person on her mind, or should be, given that her mother was taking her shorts off while standing gloriously, wondrously naked. She was just barely touching Lucy and leaving patches of goose-bumps over her tan, dirty skin.

“What’s… _unh, God_ —Alura,” Lucy groaned, her head falling back so she stared at the ceiling.

There was no way possible she was going to remain standing if she watched Alura drop to her knees, tugging those shorts down with her. She bit her lip and fixed her gaze on a corner of beautifully crafted crown molding that would no doubt up the resale value of the house as soon as Lucy made Alura move out of this place and into her apartment; because they were so, so not going to be able to do this suburb/city commuting thing if Alura was half as infatuated with Lucy as Lucy was with her (naked disrobing for daytime showers notwithstanding). Between their schedules they’d never get to see each other, so the only plausible alternative was for them to just go ahead and commit to twice daily sex and trading off nights for cooking at the apartment and maybe getting a couple of window boxes so Alura wouldn’t miss her plants so much.

Yep.

That was the plan.

Lucy always did love a plan.

“You had a question, Lucy?”

Alura, standing again, thank God, but still keeping that torturous three inches between them despite Lucy radiating want like some hormone-berserker sixteen-year-old.

“I—what’s so curious about the shower gel?”

“Oh!” Alura smirked, that slice of mischief that looked a little more familiar when her sister wore the expression than when she did. “You’re helping me build my case.”

“And what case is that?”

“My case for assistance in the shower.”

“…are you serious?”

“The instructions read…” Alura displayed the bottle of bubblegum pink gel with a flourish, flattening her palm out so that she looked like a naughty _Price is Right_ model. “ _If you really don’t know how to use this, then we suggest you find someone you really like and invite them into the shower with you to demonstrate._ ”

“You want me to come into the—wait, did they really print that?” Lucy asked, grabbing the bottle and turning it round to get a better look at the label. Yes. Right there in cutesy serif script were the damning _How to Use_ instructions, which, while tongue-in-cheek enough for adults, could potentially pose some interesting questions from youngsters if they ever got their hands on a product like this. And at a commercial chain, the marketing department would’ve had to vet the language, of course, but Lucy can’t help but wonder if there’d been any complaints or even legal suits filed over this; it could snowball quickly, especially if anyone underaged was involved—

“Are you considering the legal ramifications of foolish people who might do something subversive if given these instructions?” Alura asked.

“I…” Lucy kinda couldn’t believe she’d let her mind wander down that path given her current state of undress, but yeah, yes, she did. “…maybe.”

“I did the same,” Alura said, looking fondly down at the bottle in Lucy’s hand. “But my sister took one glance at that label and said something... something to the effect of: ‘if I had only had that when I had first met Alexandra, it would have saved us so much time’.”

“That… sounds like a very Astra thing to say,” Lucy agreed.

“When she asked me who I might… who, uhm, that is—”

“Who you’d want to demonstrate with?”

“Y-Yes,” Alura managed, focus still glued to the bottle. Glued to the bottle until Lucy violated that sacred three-inch gap and cupped her jaw, forced her head up, and smiled as reassuringly as she could.

“I’m glad you thought of me,” Lucy said softly, stroking her thumb over Alura’s sharp cheekbone, feeling the grit of dirt just under the pad on her fingertip. “I’m very good at showering.” She demonstrated by using her free hand to fiddle with the catch between her shoulder blades, shrugging her bra off and tossing it carelessly to the side.

Alura sighed.

“Yes, well… I—you always smell—uh, very nice and your, uhm, your hygiene is impeccable—”

“You realize you’ve done the hard part, right?” Lucy reassured her, closing the gap with her body this time, pressing all of herself as closely up against Alura as she could. She was warm, curved and soft, but even the light brush of skin-against-skin caused the poor woman to stop breathing. “The getting-naked-part, I mean.”

“Lucy, I—I want you to, that is, uhm…” Alura shut her eyes tight, balled her strong hands up into fists and worked her jaw underneath Lucy’s hand. She’d seemed like she was so confident at the outset, but now, faced with the prospect of follow-through, it was almost like she was still worried over the possibility of rejection.

“If you ask, I’ll say yes,” Lucy reassured her.

“Lucywillyoubepleasebeintimatewithme.”

“… I didn’t quite catch that, but I think I heard a ‘please’,” Lucy smiled, stepped away from Alura’s body and back pedaled with one foot, dragging the arm that was cupping Alura’s face down over her neck, her shoulder, down round her elbow to tangle up in her fingers. She tugged on Alura as she opened the frosted-glass door that led into an outrageously spacious shower. She kept that perfect little bottle of shower gel in her free hand as she stepped under the warm spray, relishing the heat and pressure against her shoulders.

“Come on,” Lucy prompted, pulling Alura into the tiled shower stall and shutting the door behind her. She uncapped the lid to the bottle and squirted some of the pinkish gel into her hands, rubbed them round to create a lather, and finally, _finally_ , stood on her tip-toes to plant a very sweet, very quick kiss on Alura’s lips. Lucy almost missed Alura’s little gasp over the surge of the water, but she didn’t miss the full body blush.

“Was that what you wanted?” Lucy asked, rubbing her own arms with the lather, feeling the oily slip of the suds over her skin.

Her sunburn had faded to another shade of tan, so the white bubbles looked stark as arctic ice against her; Lucy smirked, thinking how icy breath had been partially to blame for her current state. She must’ve given more away in their little sunburn session than she realized for Alura to be so bold as to contrive an invitation like this.

So maybe… maybe it was Lucy’s turn to be bold.

“Alura, did you want a demonstration?” she asked, letting her hands gravitate up toward her neck. She worked the suds in circles around the curve of her own jaw, bent her neck back for the spray to properly wet her hair, and made sure to arch her spine a little more than necessary to reach the stream. She swayed a little underneath the shower stream, working her fingers in tiny circles at the back of her hairline. Then, she dragged her fingers over her shoulders and down, all along her clavicle, until she finally cupped the swell of her breasts in each hand and circled the sudsy remains of the gel round them and beneath them, rubbing absently at her sternum while Alura watched, slack-jawed and needy.

“—I can always head home and finish showering in my apartment—”

“No, _please_ ,” Alura said, crowding Lucy into the back corner of the square stall, placing shaking hands gently on her hips. Her words were lighter than mist when she spoke, so Lucy nuzzled closer into her warm, wet body to hear her nervous confession: “Please Lucy, stay.”

“Stay for what, Alura?” Lucy asked, loving the slick feel of the oily soap between them, the misty heat enveloping them in their own little secluded world. “I need you to tell me what you want, I need to hear it.”

“Lucy, I—I am so fond of you—”

“This clearly surpasses fondness,” Lucy returned, placing a kiss against Alura’s neck, an inch north of that tasty-looking collar bone. “What do you want, Alura?”

“Lucy, please, you know I want _you_ ,” Alura said, ducking her head away to hide her mortification.

That was all Lucy needed to take charge, so she wrapped her arms around Alura and buried her fingers in her long, wet hair. Pressing against her body fully, more steadily than she had while standing on the mat just outside the shower, seemed to alleviate some of Alura's concern. She relaxed into Lucy's embrace, spreading her legs more on instinct than want.

“That wasn’t so hard, was it?” Lucy asked.

“More terrifying than my first adjudication presentation before the High Council.”

“I can’t be as intimidating as all that.”

“The potential of your rejection?" Alura whispered, voice barely audible above the raining spray. "Paralyzing.”

“Alura,” Lucy said, pulling her out from the hiding spot at her neck, finally getting a whiff of that savory, heady scent from the shower gel. It was neither citrus nor floral, nothing light or sharp, but deep, substantial, like vanilla or soil-saturated petrichor. There was depth to the smell and it somehow complemented Alura entirely, like a perfume chosen specifically for her personality. It had now surpassed the clean, printed scent of fresh law journal in Lucy’s list of favorites. Because it was Alura.

And Alura was her favorite.

“You are an absolute marvel,” Lucy whispered. “No one in their right mind could ever reject you.”

“Lucy—”

“I would very much like to show you just how precious you are,” Lucy said. “Can I kiss you? Properly this time?”

“ _Please_ ,” Alura said, dropping her forehead to rest against Lucy’s. “Please, Lucy, kiss me—”

So she did.

Properly.

And then very much _not_ properly.

Lucy didn’t like to brag, but she was a great kisser. So she started with enough pressure for Alura to really feel it, molding her lips against Alura’s mouth and sucking against her them until she’d gotten a hold of Alura’s luscious bottom lip. She kissed her again and let her hands perch lightly on Alura’s arms, not letting them wander just yet. Alura’s mouth alone deserved her attention, and so she swept into it, pressed hard against it, urging Alura to provide a little more pressure herself.

Alura broke away momentarily to stare down at Lucy, breathing hard, hair frizzing just slightly in the cloud of shower steam.

“You can go a little harder, babe,” Lucy said, the endearment slipping off her tongue like honey. She ran her left hand down Alura’s side and placed it against her hip. “I’m not going to break.”

Alura leaned back in and took direction very well, Lucy noted, because she returned with enough pressure this time for Lucy to step back and lean her head against the shower wall as she kissed Alura, rubbing tight, absent circles on her hip while she ran her tongue along the seam of Alura’s lips. Alura opened to her with a breathy sigh, a soft, relieved sound, and welcomed Lucy’s tongue with tentative suction of her own. It was… different, certainly, until Alura finally seemed to understand that there was some action required on her part as well, so she moved her hands to Lucy’s shoulders and folded her body against Lucy's smaller frame, allowing her to receive all of Alura’s glorious, perfect weight.

“That was— _unhm_ , so good, Alura,” Lucy said, breaking away to place little kisses along Alura’s cheeks, her jaw, her throat. She ran her tongue down one of the straining tendons in Alura’s neck until her teeth finally found that sharp jut of collar bone. She opened her mouth and _bit_ , engendering some sort of dual howling-yippy noise from Alura in the process. Lucy smirked, then swirled her tongue around the attack and sucked on it until it grew much redder than the rest of her skin. Tasting Alura was an experience that deserved to be savored, so she spent as much time as Alura let her licking and sucking, biting her possessive way along her clavicle and the plush give at the hollow of her throat.

“Lucy," Alura gasped. "Lucy, that—that was…”

Lucy withdrew momentarily, smiling at Alura's inability to finish her thought. She reached for the shower gel propped on one of the tiny tiled shelves and uncapped the plastic lid with her thumb. She rotated them round so that she was under the spray once again, having gotten a little chilled despite their amorous shenanigans.

“Yeah?” Lucy prompted, squeezing a dollop of body wash into her hands. 

“I’ve never kissed like that,” Alura confessed, placing her forehead down in the stream of water, letting the spray trickle down in between them. Lucy kissed her again for good measure, long and deep and wet enough for her to remember. When she pulled away she bit at Alura’s lips, trying to leave a reminder of herself even when they weren’t connected. She ran her soapy hands all around Alura's front, working up a sudsy lather, getting used to Kryptonian skin beneath her fingertips. She brushed away any final speckles of dirt and withdrew for a moment, letting the spray wash over them both before returning for Alura's mouth and that pleasant, hesitant suction. She broke away after one final exchange, light-headed from the sweetness on her tongue.

“Well, you are a ridiculously fast learner,” Lucy said, running her free hand up and down Alura’s arm. “I’m sure you’ll master the shower gel with very little problem.”

“Hmm, perhaps you overestimate my ability,” Alura teased, moving to press a kiss just below Lucy’s ear. Lucy indulged her for a moment, but didn’t want the focus to shift. This was about _Alura_ and her needs, and Lucy was just going to have to show her that she would be impossible to live without.

“I have complete confidence in you ability. You followed directions very well the other evening with the aloe.”

“Perhaps you’re just good at giving them. I like it when things are clear,” Alura mumbled.

“You… you like it when people tell you what to do?”

Alura pulled back, noting that the interaction had become more conversation than… than whatever she was hoping for. “Does everyone not prefer explicit instruction? Especially when set to an important task?”

“For some things, yes, but I meant… I meant... sexually,” Lucy met Alura's gaze, confident in her explanation. “Because you seemed a little hesitant at first... with the tongue.”

Alura’s eyes grew very wide and her body very still. She was about to look away when Lucy caught her, hands back to her face, claiming that eye contact Alura could hold with the foulest of criminals in all the galaxies but for some reason never, never with Lucy herself.

“Hey,” Lucy said, kissing Alura again, and then once more for good measure. “We do whatever you want to do and nothing more.”

“No, I—I understand that. It is not something… it’s actually quite appealing if—I wouldn’t want to disappoint—”

“You could never, never in a million years,” Lucy said, kissing Alura again, _again_ , putting it down on her list of daily to-do’s that she’ll always have to get done no matter what.

All dishes put away.

Paperwork complete with a 48 hour turn-around.

Multiple phone alarms for gym, shower, breakfast, in that order.

Kissing Alura.

Kissing Alura _again_.

“—later?” Alura asked, pressing her face down and against Lucy once more, her fingers tangled in Lucy’s wet hair.

“Later, never. Your call, babe,” Lucy said, daring to skim her hands along Alura’s sides, brushing the underside of Alura’s breast teasingly with her fingers.

“Lucyyyyy,” Alura groaned, dropping her head on Lucy’s shoulder.

“I need to lather you up with this stuff if we ever want to get your tutorial started.”

“Do whatever you must, but please do not stop touching me.”

“I love the way you say please when you really want something,” Lucy said, cupping Alura’s breast suddenly, squeezing and palming to get used to the weight in her hands. They were well-proportioned and pale, full with hard, straining brown nipples. Rivulets of water gathered and ran down the slopes and into Lucy’s soapy hands, the weight and water pooling in plush, perfect handfuls.

“Please then, please just…”

Lucy squeezed a bit harder and noticed the way Alura was squirming all over, her hips, her fingers in Lucy’s hair, her feet unable to stay planted apart. So Lucy gave her a little relief, pulled her closer and thrust her thigh in between Alura’s legs, meeting her wet center.

“ _Blehtkl_ , I can’t, Lucy—”

“Take a step back for me, come on.” Lucy guided Alura back against the shower wall, reversing their previous positions. She rubbed her hands over Alura’s breasts, her shoulders, her neck and arms, kissing her all the while. Alura rocked against her, squeezing her thigh between her legs to get something, some kind of friction, but the slip and drag was minimal with only Lucy’s wet thigh between them.

“So good, babe,” Lucy continued, wiping away at a spot on her chest that got a little too sudsy with a wash cloth. She followed with her lips, carefully attending to the pale skin there, skin that was begging to be licked now that it had been washed clean of the sweat from the garden. Lucy kissed Alura all around her chest, loving the fascinating sounds of gurgles and groans that Alura just could not stifle. Her moans were drawn and low, echoing and reverberating off the walls of the shower stall like perfect vibrations of pleasure. Lucy felt Alura drag herself slowly back and forth along her thigh as she sighed, getting rather used to the feel of Lucy’s mouth on her, the way she held her.

Which meant Lucy needed to change things up.

So she took Alura’s nipple in her mouth and sucked hard, rolling her tongue around the stiff tip and flicking the other with her sudsy fingers. The slip of tongue over one and soap on the other was enough to make Alura choke, her _Hah!_ of astonishment music to Lucy’s ears. Alura’s hand pressed the back of Lucy’s head even closer against her chest as she groaned, eyes closing in bliss. Lucy released her breast but came right back, dragging her teeth along the slope playfully and flicking her tongue out to tease, testing Alura’s threshold for pleasure. Lucy sucked hard once more on the other nipple that had been rinsed free of the soap, careful to give it that same dedicated suction she’d applied to the first.

“Lucy, _Rao_ Lucy, please—”

“Yes?”

“More, please, touch me, I can’t with just—not just with your leg.”

Lucy released her breast and was nearly bowled over with the force of Alura’s kiss. She clung to her, arms wrapped tight round her back as she rutted up against Lucy’s thigh, getting no more traction than she’d had originally because of all the soapy slickness. But something about a Kryptonian, a bastion of reserved respectability, humping her thigh with huffy little _hahs!_ left Lucy feeling like the strongest woman in the world. 

So she tested the waters: “You want my fingers inside you, Alura?”

“ _Ohhh_ ,” Alura groaned, gasping when Lucy bit down hard on her collar bone. “Yes, Lucy... inside me, please.”

“Rubbing your clit? You want me to make you come?”

“Please-please-please-Rao, Lucy-please—!”

Lucy let her hand slide between them and met soaking, hot flesh beneath the curly patch of hair below Alura’s navel. She slid her fingers through the folds to acclimate herself with territory she had every intention of becoming familiar with before dipping inside with a fingertip.

“ _Guh_ —!”

“You liked that?” Lucy mumbled, swirling around her entrance, slipping back and forth in nonsense patterns so Alura could never quite meet her, could never quite thrust down or anticipate where Lucy might go.

“Yes, I…” Alura groaned again when Lucy gently massaged her clit, rubbing in perfect ovals of stimulation, just a touch faster than she’d been thrusting with her thigh earlier. She kept her pace consistent with a thumb, her build gradual, but her hand was so fucking slick she couldn’t tell if it was the shower-gel-of-pleasure or Alura’s wetness. “I like it when… when…”

“When what, baby?” Lucy prompted, pulling these little confessions out of Alura for her own pleasure, because hearing the words was nearly as hot as feeling her dripping into her palm.

“I loved it when you dipped inside,” Alura confessed. She bent down and kissed Lucy, sucking on her tongue as she learned earlier, rubbing and rolling it around Lucy’s mouth. “You fingers inside—and your tongue—“

“That reminds me,” Lucy said, withdrawing her hand right as Alura’s eyes whipped open in dismay.

“Lucy, no, what are… what are you…”

Lucy brought her index and middle finger up to her lips and finally got Alura’s taste on her tongue, wonderful and womanly in every sense. “I just needed a taste, babe.”

“Oh…” Alura gulped, eyes fixed on the slow drag of Lucy's index in and out of her kiss-swollen lips. “Oh, _Lucy_ —”

“That’s alright,” Lucy said, pressing a finger over Alura’s lips. “I have every intention of seeing this case through to its final verdict.” She journeyed back down between Alura’s legs with her hand and, instead of prolonging the poor woman’s torture, slipped one finger inside of her. “I can only hope the outcome will be favorable.”

Lucy pressed Alura back against the shower wall and fucked her slowly, helping her get used to the sensation inside her. Alura was—exquisite wasn’t a good enough word, but that’s all that came to mind. She was soft and supple against Lucy’s fingers and her muscles were responding with wonderful little jumps from her touch. Lucy inserted and withdrew in steady fashion, cupping her hand to keep a consistent brush on Alura’s clit, grazing it with a _thump-thump-thump_ on every press further into her. When her hand felt wet and creamy again, Lucy tried for two.

“Another?”

“Hmm?” Alura managed, digging into Lucy’s shoulder a bit harder than she had originally.

“Do you want another finger inside you?”

“Rao, _yes_!” Alura cried, jaw dropping once Lucy thrust harder and deeper with two, corkscrewing her digits within Alura to hit all of her warm walls. “Oh, please, oh Lucy—”

“Do you like it when I fuck you like this?” Lucy asked, her wrist thrusting at a bit of an awkward angle, her speed picking up as Alura’s hips danced down to meet her hand.

“Yes, I, I love it when you touch me—”

“Say fuck,” Lucy prompted her, unsure where that desire of her own had come from. She leaned closer into Alura’s ear and took the lobe between her teeth, tugging and letting the flesh snap back into place while water pounded her back and Alura pounded her fingers. “Say you like it when I fuck you.”

“I like it when you fuck me, Lucy. You’re so—so good—!”

Lucy kissed Alura and kept thrusting, dragging her other hand down to Alura’s center to put steady pressure on her clit again, swiping up and down, up and down, flicking and rubbing and massaging and tapping, never the same sensation for too long, keeping that momentum with her finger in Alura’s cunt no matter what else.

“Hah—hah, Lucy—!”

“Come on, babe,” Lucy said, smacking Alura’s side and then returning her hand to her clit. “You can do it.” Lucy could feel the inexhorable pressure building, that perfect, wet squeeze against her fingers that would pull her in even deeper, even more than she’d already dived. And oh, was she diving, she falling for this woman, head over heels in a bathroom stall.

Lucy gave another wet pass over her clit and two more hard thrusts and Alura was done for—her eyes shut tight and her shoulders grew tense, her insides seized with pleasure as the orgasm overtook her, as Lucy watched that perfect play of satisfaction race over her face and trickle out to her extremities. Like firelight, or a rainbow, sex with someone like Alura, who Lucy had legitimate feelings for, felt like the spread of some sort of indescribable lightness in every nerve of her body. First the tight, unyielding gratification, the wet release, the momentary high, and then the soothing, blissed-out come-down from all of that exertion that was so, so worth the effort. Alura fell into Lucy as she dove forward for a kiss, a consuming, lazy, fulfilling press of lips against lips after what felt like months of inevitability.

“Thank you,” Alura whispered, finding her feet in the aftermath, trying not to slide down into a puddle and follow the suds that had started the whole thing down into the drain. “You were… you were absolutely wonderful.”

“I will never be over how polite you are,” Lucy said, twisting the tap behind her. Somewhere around the breasts-in-mouth situation, the water had tempered to luke-warm and then trickled down to cold and then colder. Lucy had hardly noticed, but now, she was really freezing.

“What type of manners would I really have...” Alura said, swooping in behind Lucy. She’d wrapped herself up in Alura’s discarded towel, but Alura’s arms worked just as well, too: “…if I didn’t return the favor?”

“Alura,” Lucy smiled, relishing the taller woman’s warmth as she curled herself over Lucy's frame. “You know that’s not why I—I’m not expecting that, if it’s something you’re uncertain about.”

“I’m not uncertain,” Alura said. “I know with an absolute certainty that you are a powerful woman who likes to use that power efficiently, and, hmm… oh-so effectively.”

Lucy chuckled.

“Who am I to deny the opposing side the opportunity to present their case?” Lucy mused, chasing after Alura into the bedroom.

“Then allow me to present my opening remarks,” Alura said, turning Lucy round and pulling her flush up against her, “I am beyond attracted to you, more than fond of you, and the idea of merely _liking_ you upsets my inclinations for specificity,” Alura chanced, kissing Lucy again. “I think I may be falling in love with you, and I’ve never done such a thing.”

Lucy beamed, unable to contain herself.

“I’d be happy to guide you through it,” she said, leaning in for one of what would soon become many, many kisses. 

Lucy hoped vaguely, in the distant, rational part of her mind, that Kara wouldn't hate her _too_ much.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> casually editing nsfw fic on my lunch break... hope you enjoyed, friends :P
> 
> *update* made it past lunch break and started drinking wine while editing and online shopping. bad idea folks. bad idea.
> 
> would love a comment or for you to come yell at me at anonymississippi.tumblr.com

**Author's Note:**

> instead of finishing my multi-chap general danvers piece like a good little author, i churned out 3.5 chapters of MJY flirting and more... oops?


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